Saturday, February 22, 2014

Located on the Southwest side of Ankeny, Sawgrass Park is hidden back in a newer residential area. It's easily accessible and has a nice handicap accessible fishing area along with a paved path that circles the pond. The pond has a very good population of bluegill and crappy and is a great ice fishing location. I've seen very few people ice fishing this winter and typically don't run into many people fishing this location year round. The bluegill are not huge, in the 5" to 8" range but you can usually catch a nice amount of of the larger bluegill, plenty big to get a decent fillet. I've caught a few good size bass during the summer here but always return them as they help keep the bluegill population in check. If people start taking too many large mouth bass out of this pond it will quickly be ruined by an overpopulation of bluegill. As a nice surprise, you may also run into a group of crappy ice fishing the pond.

About

Ankeny, IA has a bunch of public fishing ponds hidden around town. With family in the area I'm often in Ankeny and one of my favorite past times is heading out to one of the local ponds. The goal of this blog is to let everyone know about the availability of these fishing ponds. Many people I've spoken with don't seem to know the ponds exist and/or don't know that they are open to the public for fishing. Over time I'll post a few pictures along with map locations to help people find these ponds.